Aftermath
by Twin Kats
Summary: A series of introspective drabbles into the mind of Erik Lehnsherr after the events of X3. Includes plot from all of the X-Men movies. #3 Alles ist gut: Everything is not alright. His nightmares tell him so.
1. Chess

It is better to view this particular story on AO3 as there are certain formatting issues that, unfortunately, can't be displayed on FFN and thus rather mess up the story itself. On AO3 I am TwinKats and this story is titled Aftermath. I would link, but FFN has disabled that option.

**Aftermath  
**_Chess_

He sits alone, chess pieces set out in a game that has been in play for years. Fingers clasp a rook, crisp blue eyes (OCA2 gene, groovy mutation) distant in thought. The gloves on his hands are rough (winter in Russia, '62, _Charles_) a grey cotton-wool fabric but suiting for an old man his age in the not-quite-winter but no-longer-fall weather that has taken New York. He's waiting for _White_ to move (_no, God, Charles you fool!_) but _White_ never will, he knows. _White_ is dead (like mama, only worse, infinitely worse) and he's left with an unfinished game and his brooding thoughts (memories), powerless.

(no, not quite powerless, not really, because he knows so much, too much, Nazi hunter, killer, Frankenstein's _monster_, _where is his creator?_)

He finds it funny how without the helmet, the pink and red and grey (_gaudy_, he admits, only to himself) costume he paraded around in, virtually no one recognizes him. It's comforting and unsettling all at once, and he can't help the (not-quite shark-like) grin at those thoughts. Isn't that the story of his life? His fingers toy with the rook a second longer (he wishes for a hand to twine them in instead) and he lets go with a sigh. It's late, time to pack up—  
(next time, Charles?)  
—to head back to the—the—well wherever it is because it's not home, not really.

(home was with him, his equal, his opposite and perfect and not alone, _god_ you're _not alone_)

He'll be back tomorrow, waiting for the other, his _White King_ that will never come, to finish a game that will never be done.

(for how can it really be over when they were playing as well as acting and the _Red Queen_ killed her _White King_ before turning **Black**_?_ That wasn't how the game worked after all, the pieces can't _do_ that, _she_ _can't do that!_)

Tomorrow he'll come back, set the board up, wait, reminisce, remember, and then go back to his not-home to repeat. Maybe _White_ will show (_White_ has to, _has to_, because he can still move **Black** without touching, despite all odds he pushed that Bishop, he _did_) and they'll laugh about everything and play and then go _home_, _together_, like they should have that day in Cuba.

(all he wants is to go home, to curl up and wrap his arms around his _not alone_ and ignore the world because the world can rot, he is done with it, with _everything_, after all the world stole _Charles_ from him, ripped away just like mama but oh so worse and oh so painful and **Gott un himmel** he just wanted _Charles_ back. He'd taken being powerless and with _Charles_than powerful and without)

His name is Erik Lehnsherr (**Magneto**, the mind traitorously whispers) but he is nothing (just **Black** and lonely and _old_, god when did he get so _old?_) and has been nothing (he refuses to be mutant without Charles) and will remain nothing.

(because **kliene ****Erik Lehnsherr**, because **Magneto**, because **the mutant who could bend metal and manipulate magnetic fields**, is dead and has been dead ever since he lost _Charles Xavier__._ His body just didn't know it. Neither did his mind, really, but his heart knew and it bled and fluttered but did not beat)

* * *

Summary: He can't fathom how their game got so twisted, and turned out so wrong. Chess wasn't supposed to be like this.


	2. Why?

It is better to view this particular story on AO3 as there are certain formatting issues that, unfortunately, can't be displayed on FFN and thus rather mess up the story itself. On AO3 I am TwinKats and this story is titled Aftermath. I would link, but FFN has disabled that option.

**Aftermath  
**_Why?_

There is one trait of Erik's personality that is borne of a need to understand, that is not a product of old age (and lord he is _old_ now, in his _seventies_, but he doesn't want to think of that) or of the trials and tribulations of being Jewish in Germany during WWII, or even a byproduct of his many, many mistakes and failures over the years. No, it is a fundamental aspect of his personality, a core piece of what made Erik, Erik and then later what turned him to become Magneto. It is why Erik _cannot_ let go of his own past, why he believes coexistence was (is) a futile endeavor.

Erik thinks upon his mistakes, he ponders what could have been, and what is, and turns in his own mind, over and over, the atrocities that have been committed both in his name and upon his person and upon other persons. He does this in an attempt to uncover _why_. _Why_ did Germany blame the Jews, why were the Polish Jews treated so much _worse__?_ _Why_ did Shaw-Schmidt work amongst them? _Why_ was he so enamored with nuclear war? _Why_ did Erik leave Charles on that beach with a broken back? _Why_ did he leave Charles at all? _Why__?_

He still hasn't found his answers.

* * *

Summary: There is a fundamental part of his personality, and it's made him who he is.


	3. Alles ist gut

It is better to view this particular story on AO3 as there are certain formatting issues that, unfortunately, can't be displayed on FFN and thus rather mess up the story itself. On AO3 I am TwinKats and this story is titled Aftermath. I would link, but FFN has disabled that option.

**Aftermath  
**_Alles ist gut_**  
**

His dreams are more akin to nightmares where _mama_ stands before him repeating the phrase

_alles is gut, __alles ist gut  
_—over and over again. Only she's dripping blood like a punctured beer keg and her lips are stained red. Her face is a mess of rotting flesh and dirt and grime and disease and suddenly she's not _mama_ anymore she's _Charles_and still saying with blood soaked cherry lips  
_alles ist gut__, __alles ist gut__  
_—until Erik's gasping awake in his own bed, breathing heavily and old and alone.

(or not old because he's had this nightmare for years and years and way back when he was still allied with Emma when Charles began to show up, when _mama_ first became _Charles_ somehow, Erik remembers saying, "That's new," breathlessly and laughing bitterly)

He comes to hate those words as much as "they're just men following orders" over the years and now, as an old man, he thinks he hates them even more. _Alles ist gut_ is a curse and a lie.

(he mutters it under his breath every day, lying to himself because it's not alright, it's never alright, it will never _be_ alright, dammit)

_Alles ist gut_he says.  
(he really means _nein. Alles ist nicht gut_)

* * *

Summary: Everything is not alright. His nightmares tell him so.


End file.
